The Author (Shadow Hearts)
The Author is a god of the ancient order of the Fomor Druids in Koudelka. It is the creator of the fabled Émigré Manuscript, a book with the power to manipulate death and time and a prime sorce of chaos in Koudelka and the Shadow Hearts games. Biography The Manuscript of Exiles The Author is a god of the ancient Fomor Druids, it recorded the Manuscript of Exiles, the original copy of the Émigré Manuscript, with the power to undo death. The Fomor Druids died off in ancient times but the neighboring Celts and their descendants came into possession of the Manuscript of Exiles and would eventually pay it as tribute to Alexander the Great during his campaign across Europe. Alexander had the Manuscript placed in his Great Library in Alexandria and it would be one of the few books moved out before the Library's great fire. Over the years the book came into the possession of the Vatican and was kept locked away in the Pope's secret library, but around the 12th century the Pope had the book examined and found it was in danger of decay so he had it copied by the era's greatest living scholar, Roger Bacon. When copying and translating from the original Druidic texts into Latin and recording the results Roger came to understand the principles which the book's spells and formulas played upon and gained what he called a "Revelation", an insight into the nature of reality. This lead Roger to make himself immortal and even inspired him later on to write two sister books to the Émigré Manuscript, the Pulse Tract, which could incarnate the very will of the planet and the Codex of R'lyeh which recorded the nature of the Outer Gods. After Roger finished recording the Émigré Manuscript the Pope tried to have him executed but, as an immortal, Roger managed to evade death and disappeared into history. The book would be stolen years later by a student of Bacon's for a man named Patrick Heyworth. Patrick tried to use the book to resurrect his wife Elaine, he only ended up bringing to life an undead monster in his wife's body. When he realized what he had done, Patrick fed himself to the beast as penance for all the people he had sacrificed to the book to revive his wife. Elaine's body was eventually put to rest by the traveling witch, Koudelka, who had heard Elaine's spirit calling out for help. Koudelka and her friends Edward and Father James O'Flaherty met Bacon while at the Heyworth Estate and he did his best to help them undo the horrors unleashed by the Émigré Manuscript and the undead created by it were cleansed. Unknown to Koudelka and the others though Patrick had gotten help in his research from the Royal Medical Society. A man from the Royal Medical Society called Dogol had been sent to help Patrick with his research and was sent by the head of the Society, Lord Leslie, to retrieve the Émigré Manuscript and all the copies of Patrick's research when he was done. Dogol had not been there for the final stages of Patrick's research so he was not there to see what became of Elaine's body or retrieve the Émigré Manuscript itself. ''Koudelka'' When Dogol returned he found the Heyworth Estate destroyed. Dogol had the wreckage thoroughly combed but no sign of the Émigré Manuscript could be found; In Shadow Hearts it would be revealed why - The student who stole the Émigré Manuscript in the first place for Patrick had shortly after Patrick's death returned for the Manuscript. Dogol did however find Patrick's research journals and studied them well before returning to Leslie. Leslie had wanted the Émigré Manuscript itself once he was convinced it would work, to revive his daughter and help record an effective way to undo death, Dogol had high hopes that the notes themselves would be enough to recreate Patrick's experiment. Leslie and Dogol soon formed a plan to acquire the full power of the Émigré Manuscript, they tracked down the witch who had destroyed the Heyworth estate, Koudelka and even Roger Bacon himself. Both Koudelka and Roger refused initially to help, until Leslie and Dogol revealed they had captured Koudelka's friends as hostages. Though they did not have the Émigré Manuscript, Dogol said it would be of little help anyway since Roger had apparently altered the text from the very original, though the nature of his alterations were a mystery to them. Dogol knew that whatever Roger had done he had edited out a small but crucial part of the rites which prevented the ritual from achieving maximum potential. When Roger realized what it was they were asking for he became more adamant than ever about preventing the rites, though he did not stop to say why. At the first sign of Roger's outrage Dogol revealed eldritch powers he had acquired from his brief time going over the Émigré Manuscript with Patrick and used them to restrain Roger. Since the old scribe was not submit to blackmailed, Koudelka felt she had no choice and was willing to hear out Leslie and Dogol's terms. Leslie may not have known where Roger's copy of the Émigré Manuscript was but he knew where the original Manuscript of Exiles was and had paid-off the right people in the Vatican to have it stolen. The Manuscript was long since unreadable due, to both Roger being the only living person who could translate it (Which was very clear he would never do) and due to the book itself being so old only its restraints were holding it together, however Leslie and Dogol figured a way to obtain the power of the book without reading it, which was where Koudelka had come into their plan. Koudelka was a channeler, she could commune with a spirit just by making contact with something of great significance to said spirit, Leslie and Dogol intended for Koudelka to use the book as an template to call on the spirit of the author who had written it in the first place. Roger made frantic protests against the notion saying the Author was not some long dead Druid but was a dark pagan god and invoking it would surely overshadow Koudelka completely leading to demonic possession. Leslie and Dogol seemed less than scared so Koudelka told them the truth of what became of Patrick and Elaine. Upon hearing Koudelka's account of Patrick's experiments and the undead monster that was raised in place of Elaine the two remained unfazed, as far as Leslie was concerned the resurrection's failure was a fault on Patrick's part and by invoking the Author directly with an offering of more than 200 dead humans, he and Dogol would be cutting out the middleman and simply paying for an immediate result to the source itself. Unable to change Leslie and Dogol's minds Koudelka was left with no choice but to invoke the Author as her friends' lives were still at stake. Once Koudelka began to channel the Author she was completely possessed by it just as Roger had warned. The Author asked why Leslie and Dogol had dared to invoked it and Leslie made his request, for the full unhampered power of the Émigré Manuscript preformed. The Author delayed a moment then took in the request and agreed to it, with a minor gesture it began to marshal its forces. It was then that Roger tried to make it clear what they were asking for. The only edit he had made in his copy was the price required and the parameters of the ritual, parameters the Author was expanding at Leslie and Dogol's request. He asked why it had not occurred to the Royal Medical Society to ask how an ancient people who mastered death were no longer around, the answer was that they had inadvertently killed themselves off through overuse of the rituals; unrestricted the rites would drain the life-force of every single thing on earth. At long last Leslie and the rest of his people were aware of the terrible power they were toying with and Leslie attempted to have it stopped however Dogol insisted things kept going, for as an immortal, like Roger Bacon, Dogol would not be taken as sacrifice. Dogol even used his powers to reanimate Leslie's daughter as an undead servant so the powers of the Author would not be wasted on her but instead go to him. It became clear Dogol had been playing on Leslie's grief from the beginning just to get the Author's power. Leslie's granddaughter Joshua held forth an amulet of Koudelka's as the last-ditch effort to protect them. Koudelka had told Joshua if things ever looked hopless Joshua only had to look to the amulet to make things right. Dogol laughed at the small trinket which seemed to have no power of any kind until he was interupted by Koudelka. Koudelka was again in control of her own body and stopped the ceremony before the Author could wipe-out all life. Koudelka had hypnotized herself years ago to respond to the presence of the amulet if she was ever deep in a trance or under a spirit's possession, she had given it to Joshua specifically to revive her senses if needed. Dogol was enraged and set out to kill Koudelka and all her friends for ruining his rituall. However, he was swiftly pummeled half to death by the Author. Koudelka revealed that she was still a conduit for the Author, her consciousness simply was at the the reigns thanks to the amulet's hypnotic trigger. Dogol was immortal and miraculously survived the first attack, of course the Author's power was the source of such immortality and so with a second assault Dogol was reduced to nothing more then an eyeball which his spirit was tied to, an eyeball which was swiftly squashed beneath the foot of one of Koudelka's friends completely killing Dogol. Koudelka's Sleeping Power The Author presumably never left Koudelka's body and remained part of her power until the game Shadow Hearts. Albert Simon, the student that had taken the Émigré Manuscript in the first place, wanted to use Koudelka's power to complete a ritual in the Codex of R'lyeh that paled to even what Dogol was planning. To put her in a more cooperative mood he had told an order of witch-hunters about Koudelka and let them spend years torturing her, Koudelka had gone quietly with them when they threatened to kill her son Halley but had used her hypnosis to place herself in a trance to avoid feeling the pain of the inquisitors' torture. Eventually Halley arrived with Yuri Hygua, a young man who Koudelka had psychically contacted previously, to save Koudelka. But once they were there, Albert Simon and his henchman Arcane Olga used the opportunity to capture Halley and used him as leverage to blackmail Koudelka into lending him her power. When Koudelka awoke she displayed a tremendous power, one that even gave Simon a sense of awe, a significant feat since up until then nothing had seemed on par with Albert's powers. Albert even refers to Koudelka as "the Witch of the Dark Flames", likely a reference to the Author's power. But in the end, Koudelka once again decided to cooperated when faced with losing a loved one. Yuri and Halley chased down Albert and Koudelka to stop the ritual the Demon's Gate Invocation. But Koudelka herself decided to undermine Albert's ritual. Albert warned her she was throwing away her life but Koudelka was more than willing to risk her life to save the planet and her son. Albert countered Koudelka's powers with a demon god of his own named Amon, who Albert had made a pact with. Albert still had a plan, to use the fight with Yuri and his friends' energy being given off to power the ritual in Koudelka's stead and by fighting Amon, Yuri and his friends, inadvertently helped activate the ritual anyway. Yuri and his friends would eventually go on to stop the God Albert had used them to summon but Koudelka could not come with them. Koudelka admitted that the ritual expelled the Author from her body and robbed her of most of her powers and all she could do was wait and hope for Yuri and Halley's safe return. Trivia *The Author's goat-like head somewhat resembles the mythological and controversial demon Baphomet. However, his appearance is in lieu with one of versions of mythological Fomorian' ancient accounts such as the Lebor na hUidre, ("The Book of the Dun Cow") in which they depicted with: "the body of a man and the head of a goat". *Though the Author is a Druidic god, he still refers to the secrets recorded in his works as the true power of God, additionally both Roger and Albert gain revelations into the true nature of God thanks to the text. This implies that though worshiped by the ancient Druids the Author was still of a common origin with the Judaeo-Christian God. Navigation Category:Deities Category:Collector of Souls Category:Death Gods Category:Evil Creator Category:Shadow Hearts Villains Category:Manga Villains Category:Dark Forms Category:Demon Category:Animals Category:Humanoid Category:Hybrids Category:Reality-Warpers Category:Omniscient Category:Genies Category:Possessor Category:Deal Makers Category:Male Category:Tyrants Category:Villains by Proxy Category:Amoral Category:Paranormal Category:Magic Category:Immortals Category:Neutral Evil